Past, present and future
by keeya
Summary: Extinct animals have made reappearances around the world and at the same time important people have gone missing. MI6 think there's a connection and decide to send in Alex Rider to find out what is happening but can he make the connection?
1. Chapter 1: Introductions

Author's note: I DO NOT OWN ALEX RIDER but I DO OWN ASHLEY AND ANY OTHER UNKNOWN CHARACTERS.

This is an improved version of chapter one so I apologise to all those who thought this would be a brand new chapter.

**I would like to thank first and foremost Dare-deviless for encouraging me to put up this story without her; this story would remain on my computer for my own viewing and not to all you fantastic people.**

**Secondly, thanks to Glissoning Raven for my first review on chapter two; it encouraged me to write more.**

**Finally, thanks to ThJFl for my first area of improvement. It might not seem like I have listened to it in this chapter but I have taken note of your ideas and am going to incorporate it in the rest of my chapters, hopefully. (If not slate me in your reviews)**

**Thanks once again and keep reviewing…**

**Chapter One: Introductions**

Fourteen years old and Alex Rider was already wishing for his retirement. His six life threatening missions for MI6 had certainly ensured that he no longer wanted to be an extraordinary teenage spy. On the contrary he just wanted to lead a quiet life, however, he knew that whilst MI6 had control over his life that would never be the case.

It was ten-o clock Saturday morning and for once Alex Rider was in bed relaxing; something, which he reminded himself every ten minutes; was a thing that he didn't get to do very often. He had been back at school for about two weeks and had only just got half of his lessons back on track; even if it had taken tutors after school and extra lunch time sessions to build it back up. As he was thinking back over the last two weeks at school his phone rang.

"Hello, Rider speaking," he yawned down the phone, dreading to hear who would be on the other end.

"Good morning Alex, I was wondering…" came a familiar woman's voice.

"No way, not again," Alex angrily interrupted the woman.

"Alex, hear me out, we are not sending you on a mission we just have some things to discuss with you," the woman sternly told Alex.

Sighing, Alex mentally made a reminder to himself about answering his mobile in the morning," Fine Mrs Jones, I will be there in an hour."

"Thank you very much Alex," Mrs Jones replied and hung up the phone. Alex ended the call on his phone and flopped back on his bed moaning to himself. Then he realised that he actually had to get up. He dragged on some clothes and attempted to sort out his hair whilst pondering over what MI6 had to discuss with him. Then he ran out the house yelling at Jack that he would be back for dinner and made his way to the Royal Bank and General in Liverpool Street.

When he arrived at the bank he found it easy to get access to the lift something which he realised he didn't get before and so perturbed by this he made his way to Head of MI6's office. He raised his fist to knock on the door but as he went to knock the door was flung open and Wolf barged out of it seemingly in anger.

"Sorry mate," he mumbled not noticing that it was Alex and walked away leaving Alex bewildered in the doorway his fist still raised.

"Would you like to come in Alex?" Alan Blunt asked him and Alex walked in lowering his arm as he did. Blunt indicated to a seat, which Alex took and then Blunt started to discuss things with Alex.

"Alex we have decided to give you a job with MI6 to stop us from having to blackmail you into the missions. What do you think?" Blunt looked at Alex expectantly and Alex stared at him in shock.

"Well if it is a job what are the perks?" he managed to get out eventually.

"You get paid for one, you get a pension scheme if you wish to start one up, mobile phone and other things on top," Blunt reeled off and Alex nodded as if to encourage him to go on.

"Anything else?" he asked with a slight smile.

"You can choose to learn how to ride either a car or motorbike and will get a special license, you can have a maximum of up to five guns; one on your person four anywhere else you wish to place them. Jack will get a permanent visa and we will make her an English citizen," Blunt finished saying the one thing, which everyone knew Alex would have wanted.

"Okay I'll take the job," Alex did not have to think twice, he looked at all of the perks and realised this would be the best place for him. Blunt's face automatically relaxed and then he rubbed his hands together to get onto the next subject.

"Next thing is Alex a sort of mission but not a life threatening one," Alex raised an eyebrow at him and Blunt continued. "You see Alex we have received a message from the American government about a young fourteen year old girl who is transferring to England after the murders of her foster parents. She herself is not imminent to attack but she needs a safe and secure place to stay and we were wondering whether you would be willing to provide her a place to stay?"

"Sure thing," Alex did not even have to think twice, "When is she landing in England and do we have any information on her?"

"She will be landing at ten-o clock tonight," Blunt stated handing Alex a manila folder. "Read through this it has a photograph of her so you can find her as well as all the information about her life. You are to pick her up and arrange a taxi to your house we will pay for the taxi service obviously. Thank you very much Rider you are dismissed and welcome to the Royal Bank and General," with that Alex stood up and walked out of the room making his way back to his in Chelsea.

When he arrived at his house he sat at the kitchen table and read a note left there by Jack before reading the manila folder worth of information.

_First Name:Ashley Lynn_

_Surname:Curtis_

_Age:14 years old_

_Date of Birth:17__th__ April 1990_

_Eye colour:Hazel_

_Hair colour:Black with blue undertones_

_Height:Five foot _

_Background Information:_

_Parents are Martin and Katherine Curtis, who were murdered when Ashley was seven. Ashley was put up for adoption where Matthew and Kirsty Pollock fostered her. Matthew and Kirsty were murdered when Ashley was fourteen. Ashley did have two brothers but they were killed along with her parents, she has no recollection of the night. Ashley is able to speak in Spanish, French, English, German and Russian, which she learnt at a private boarding school. Whilst at the boarding school she became a member of Ensyncrate, a band where she was backing guitarist and lead singer. Ashley is able to drive a car and motorbike although she does not have a license. Ashley specialises in kickboxing which she attends three times a week and will probably consider to do so._

Alex looked at the photograph, which was provided with the information. Ashley had shortly layered choppy hair, which was black with blue undertones. Her fringe was dragged across one eye and a small smile. He noted that she was wearing a plain black T-shirt that had a small badge although he could not see what the badge was so he had no clues as to which boarding school she attended. He sighed and prepared himself some food before he got ready to go to meet this girl at Heathrow airport.

_**In America:**_

It was two am in Los Angeles and the SWAT camp that was situated there was recovering from an attack made on it by a large group within the Chinese Triads. During the fighting an entire three units had been eliminated many of them having had their necks slit whilst a majority of the other units were treating injuries obtained from stray bullets or hand to hand combat.

The remaining units stood around one man waiting to receive orders on how to clean up the mess.

"Right we are going to start off with a role call to see what units we have so please proceed to stand in each of your individual units. Will the leaders of each unit please state the status of your team including how many can help recover the base." The man snapped and a small amount of shuffling happened so everyone was in his or her groups.

"Unit One status…" the sergeant looked at where they should have been standing and saw an empty space; he took a deep breath and continued. "Unit down…Unit two status."

"Sir, minor injuries only; a full six to help recover systems sir," Nate shouted at the sergeant who nodded. This went on through each of the ten units. Units one, three and four were down; with only half of unit seven, eight and nine able to fully participate in recovering the camp.

Each unit had its area of expertise and so they each went to their areas; unit two went to try and recover the technological aspects of the base. Nate who was leader of unit two started to give them each a task.

"Pell, your task is to gain access to the security feed so we can see if any other attacks are coming. Lewis, your task is to get the radio system back online so we can contact SWAT HQ. Rat, your task is to try and get video play back of the attack with Ray who will then try and pull ID on who attacked us. Curtis, your task is to get all systems back online and find out what those guys wanted with the files. Any information pass to me or the sergeant and I will liase with the other units. Go, go, go." The others in the unit saluted and ran to their designated areas.

Curtis tapped into the systems mainframe and noticed that it had all been encrypted. It would have to be decoded if they were to get any further. Leaning down to the tower, Curtis pulled a CD out which was labelled with V999956. Curtis stood up and walked over to Nate to give him this information and get permission to decode the systems.

"Nate sir, they have introduced a program into our mainframe causing all systems to be encrypted. Permission to decode the program and could you give the CD to unit five."

"Unit five why them?" he asked his youngest member who sighed.

"Sir, fingerprints and DNA will be found on the CD, if we combine unit five's DNA samples and our ID checks we can get a definitive ID match," Curtis explained.

Nate looked at her, his face full of doubt; Curtis started to get angry, she clenched her fingers and she saw Nate shudder as the latex gloves rubbed making a screechy sound.

"Okay how about I put this in a way that is going to make you understand. With a definitive ID match, we can go determine which of the circles of the Chinese Triads attacked, send in squads to eliminate any threat and therefore stop any more attacks. Also, if we can determine the circle that the CD originated I can then go about decoding our systems quicker."

"Fine this is obviously something you feel strongly about," Nate said and followed her to the computer station where she handed him the CD. "So can you tell anything about the status of our mainframe with just that?"

"Yes, unfortunately what I can tell is not good. As you can see here, this code is constantly changing which is an indication that all the information is on a relayed line."

"Meaning."

"Meaning, that any information on our systems is being directly transferred to the Triads something which we don't want to happen. Now if I do this and press here it should temporarily bar the transmission but only for an hour at a time." The keys on the keyboard tapped loudly as she typed in a counter for the virus.

"Surely if you know this then you can already determine which circle is involved?" Nate asked curiously.

"Unfortunately not; this method is used by all circles of the Triad especially the ones that are higher up. It is also used by SCORPIA and the Mafia so nothing can be determined just by this," they saluted and Nate left leaving Curtis to go back to the screen and start the horrible task of decoding the systems.

Half an hour later the sergeant walked up to her, she stood up and saluted which he returned and she went back to decoding the systems.

"Curtis, do you have the systems online yet?" she stopped tapping and looked up at him, blood dripping slowly down her face.

"Sir, they have scrambled all of our systems and encrypted them so it could take a while," she went back to typing on the computer and the man looked over her shoulder.

"What the hell is that Curtis?" he asked her pointing at a skull shaped symbol on the computer; Ashley grimaced and carried on.

"Ashley Lynn Curtis, tell me what that thing is," he ordered; she sighed and looked at him.

"It is a virus, V999956; its job is to relay any information on our systems straight to the origin, the Triads. It is swift and hard to block for a long period of time," she went back to work.

"Okay, I need to talk to you alone Curtis and at the moment this is the best place so I'm just going to let it out. The first two attacks on you were not a cause for concern; others did not get hurt and neither did you. But today's… I don't know what it was but it wasn't safe and people got hurt. It can't go on and CIA has requested that we dispatch you."

"Where to?" the clacking of the keys stopped as Ashley stood up enraged. She knocked a pile of CDs to the floor. "I am sorry sir but I have lasted six years in this sort of environment,"

"England's SAS are looking for a new SAS member in K unit. I am sorry Curtis but it was a CIA decision. The plane leaves in three hours and I can not personally see any way out of this situation. We have been in contact with your band and have told them that we are sending you to a distant relative in England due to the deaths of your foster parents," the man shuffled uncomfortably under the fourteen year olds look, she lowered her gaze and nodded.

"Understood sir, the situation is obviously more critical than I thought. I had better tell Nate to get someone working on the systems and pack my bags," she saluted half-heartedly and walked over to her unit who were giving their updates.

"Hello, how is everything going," she broke the silence that had overcome the group when she walked up to them.

"Everything is going well how is your area going?" Pell had replied.

"Good, I think I have the virus stopped for good but I need to pass the task onto someone else."

"Why?" Nate asked sharply.

"I am being dispatched to England in three hours and so I have to go back to HQ and get my things all together; I doubt I'll be returning so it was nice working with you," she shook each of their hands and then walked away leaving the men in shock. They watched her retreating back and then started to present the sergeant with the results that they had from their various tests. Although they couldn't quite believe what had happened, the recent attack had left them with little time to show any emotions and as they had a camp to run it was important everyone was as efficient as possible.


	2. Chapter 2: The Airport

Author's Note: I DO NOT OWN ALEX RIDER… 

**Once again this is an improved chapter not a brand new one sorry I am getting there.**

**Thanks to all my reviewers and those who have put an alert on my story but please please please review; and constructive criticism is welcomed.**

**Chapter Two: At the airport**

It was ten-o clock at night when Ashley landed in England and as she scanned the airport she felt like she didn't belong. As she was flying over, she had entertained herself by reading a folder full of information on who would be collecting her and who she would be staying with. She also read about the character that she had to play and although she managed to get away with keeping her name, this new persona was not her and she wasn't too happy about it. Apparently, the boy who was looking after her was the same age as her and did not know about her being a SWAT member and that was how it had to stay.

She got rudely brought back to reality as a man jolted her and she glared at him, refraining herself from not pulling of any major stunts, which could show who she truly was. She noticed that he was dressed all in black and seemed to have a limp and yet she could not remember him being on the plane. She shrugged off the bad feelings that the man was giving her and started to scan the crowds for the boy that was meant to be meeting her.

"Excuse me are you Ashley Curtis?" a boy tapped her on the shoulder and she spun round to look at him. He had fair hair that was tousled and he had a very athletic build. When she looked him in the eye she saw something, which shocked her and that, was action. This boy had seen things that he shouldn't have seen and Ashley knew this.

"Yes that'd be me," she replied with a forced smile; she looked at the photograph in the boy's hand and noticed that it was a recent SWAT ID picture and she had to hold back a grimace that wanted to be shown.

"I'm Alex and you are going to be staying with me, shall we get going?" he held out a hand and Ashley shook it firmly whilst nodding in response to his question. They turned around and came face to face with the man that had jolted Ashley from her memories; both she and Alex jumped at the sight.

"Excuse me sir," Alex politely asked but the gentleman remained glaring at them as if he knew something that they didn't.

"Oi mate he asked for you to move," Ashley said trying to get into character. It said in her folder that she was an American girl who lived with foster parents who used to beat her up for the fun of it. Ashley presumed from this that she was mostly polite unless aggravated.

"What if I don't want to move Curtis?" he growled at her and she frowned. He had used her surname something that very few did and she felt certain that he had not been near her or Alex during the introductions.

"How do you know my name?" she managed to ask, her face paling slightly and the man chuckled.

"Overheard dear old Rider say it of course," the colour started to return to her face; he hadn't known her and she was safe but it was Alex's turn to pale. Alex had looked at the man's wrist and had noticed that he bore a tattoo of a scorpion.

"So what is it that you want sir?" Alex said when he had found his voice, Ashley did not know that he was a spy and Blunt had put it perfectly clear that it was to stay that way.

"You of course Alex, my superiors are highly interested in you but of course you should be aware of that," the man replied evilly and Ashley looked at Alex who looked back. He mouthed the word run to her and then took off with Ashley following him closely.

Running through a crowded airport is not the easiest of things to do, and it gets even worse with an evil man lumbering after you and Alex and Ashley soon found this out. They wove themselves through the hordes of people and got to the lifts on one side of the airport. Alex immediately pressed the call button several times and Ashley turned to look out to see whether the man was coming; she noticed the crowd separate and then saw the head of the man coming towards them.

"Alex, forget the elevator, take the stairs," she called and held open the door for him. He ran through and they started to ascend to the next floor. They were half way there when they heard the door they had just gone through slam open and they stopped to look down the stair well. They saw him look up and draw a gun; they pushed themselves away and continued to the next floor.

They burst through the next doors and ran over to the other side of the airport to see if they could trick him into thinking that they had gone into a shop. It worked and he put his gun away and went slowly into the gift shops. Alex and Ashley slowly went into the stair well on the other side of the airport and looked through the glass in the window to see when he was coming.

"Got a plan?" Ashley asked breathing deeply and Alex shook his head.

"Nope you?"

"How were we meant to get to your house?"

"We were going to get a cab why?"

"Is the taxi outside?"

"No why," Alex was starting to get agitated as he saw the man coming out of the penultimate shop and enter the last but Ashley smiled.

"I have a plan," she stepped forward and whispered in his ear and he looked back at her in wonder. During their moment of distraction they did not notice that the man was coming towards them and when they did, they off down the stairs with the man literally two feet behind them. Ashley was at the back and could feel the distance between them closing so she did the first thing that came into her head and she twisted her body whilst holding onto the banisters kicking the man in the gut. Then when she landed she took off after Alex, who by now, had reached the door and was pushing it open.

They sprinted across the floor towards the car park doors with the man still after them. Ashley spotted an open topped convertible and pointed to Alex who followed her. Instead of opening the door she swung herself over and into the driver's seat. She pulled out a variety of wires under the steering wheel and hot-wired the car. She heard the car start and tied the wires together. By now Alex had managed to get in the car and so she took off the hand brake and drove the car away. The man had only just got out of the airport and started to shoot at the car. Ashley and Alex ducked until she had turned the corner and it was safe to sit up.

"What way to your house?" Ashley asked looking in the mirrors and Alex proceeded to direct her towards his house in Chelsea.

Being able to relax Alex took a proper look at Ashley; she looked exactly like she had in the photograph except for the fact that she had a large stitched gash across the top of her head.

"Where on earth did you learn to hot-wire a car?" Alex asked in amazement and Ashley recalled the story that was in the folder in her bag.

"Well my foster father used to use me as a human punch bag so whenever he came home drunk I used to make sure I was out and usually I took his car. My friend's brother taught me how to drive when I was twelve when he found out. He said it was the least he could do to protect me so I used to hot-wire my foster father's car and get out before he could hurt me."

It was all a lie and she knew it but she couldn't let Alex know that in truth at the age of twelve her SWAT unit gave her a special license so she could drive herself during missions instead of sacrificing another member of the unit. If he knew that, well she did not want to know the consequences. She looked back at her duffel bag in the back seat and noticed that it had lots of holes in it; she assumed from the gunshots.

"Is that how you got your cut?" Alex ventured to ask and she nodded curtly.

"Yes but I don't want to talk about it, is this one here your house?" she asked as she pulled outside of the house and Alex nodded getting out of the car. Ashley did likewise cutting the wires to stop the car from running. Then she grabbed the bag and followed him into the house it was nearing midnight and she was tired and wanted to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3: First week at school

**Author's Note: I do not own any of the Anthony Horowitz's characters but I do own Ashley Curtis and the Ensyncrate band.**

**I apologise for not updating my story sooner, but I have had personal issues at home and have not been able to get to the computer for longer than ten minutes at a time, I do hope that this makes up for it.**

**Thanks to all my reviewers once again and please continue to give me constructive criticism; it really does help me improve my stories. I do try and take all the criticism into account when improving chapters.**

**Chapter Three: First week at school, last week of freedom**

Monday morning came and Ashley had a feeling of dread. She had never been to a proper main stream school before; having been home schooled before she was seven and then joining SWAT at eight and only learning things that she needed to keep her alive. She had a natural talent for singing and so she attended a singing school twice a week until she got into Ensyncrate.

When she walked downstairs in her uniform she noticed Alex was sitting on a sofa watching the news and so she went to join him. She noticed that both their bags were on the floor beside him and was glad that someone had packed hers for her as she didn't know what she needed.

"Morning Alex," she drawled in her strong American accent and he grunted in return; his full attention on the screen which she looked at curious as to why he was acting so hostile. As the news reporter came on, she too became engrossed in what he had to say.

'_Owners of this red open topped convertible with registration plate Y234 HIP have returned off holiday today to find that their parked car has been stolen by two people one was female and the other male. The identities of the people who stole the car have not been found as their faces have been hidden by the shadows. If anyone has any information on the car please phone the police with this information; a reward has been issued for the return of the convertible.'_

"Holy shit," Alex cried looking at Ashley; she looked at him back.

"Well it can't be traced back here because I dumped it on a random street about two miles away from here," she stated and he nodded.

"I mean it's not like we had a choice," he told her and she nodded. They vowed to forget about the whole thing and that it would blow over when the convertible was returned to its respected owners and so they grabbed their bags and headed to school.

When they arrived, Tom Harris, Alex's best mate at Brookland Prep came rushing up to them. He started to ramble on at a thousand miles an hour and Alex had to put a hand on his shoulder to stop his friend from talking.

"Tom calm down and explain everything at a humanly understandable speed," he chuckled and Tom took a deep breath before explaining everything slower.

"On the news this morning it said that the quagga has come out of extinction. It was spotted three days ago in Africa and then a little thing about a stolen car came up; it looked like you, was it Alex huh, was it? Also are you alright you were off for ages after your appendix was removed? Hello, who's this then?" he added when he spotted Ashley half hidden behind Alex.

"Okay the quagga thing, I don't really care, never cared much for them," Alex admitted thinking back to his time on Damian Cray's virtual game. "No it was not me stealing that car and yes Tom I'm fine absolutely fine. Tom this is Ashley, Ashley Tom okay?" Alex answered all of his friend's questions and Ashley stepped forward, shaking Tom's hand; it didn't take long before they had made friend's and the three of them made their way to the form room, chatting like they had been friend's forever.

The first lesson that Ashley had that day was music and in that lesson they had to choose a song to sing in front of the class with one other instrument other than their voice. Alex was in Ashley's class and so she sat down next to him as they were each given a CD to listen to in order to choose their song. Ashley chose to sing a song by Armour for Sleep which was 'End of the world', and Alex chose to sing Linkin Park's 'What I've done,' then the two started to talk about what instrument they were going to use and Alex showed her to the store rooms and computer rooms as they managed to get hold of MIDI files and music sheets for their individual songs; then they made their way to individual practise rooms so that they could learn their songs. It was a double period and they only had four lessons before they had to perform it, so Ashley worked hard as did Alex, by the end of the double lesson they were both roughly half way in learning the songs.

After lunch Ashley followed Alex into history; this was the one lesson that she dreaded answering questions in; her life made it impossible for her not to know death figures of battles. It had been drummed into her all of her life. This term they were studying the Cold War, a war which Ashley knew relatively well but not well enough to cause suspicion amongst her class mates.

The teacher had made several presentations to show the class; one had images which were shown throughout the Cold War and the other was a timeline of the Cold War.

The teacher stopped at an image of a gun and a lot of the boys whistled apart from Alex and Tom who glared at the image. The girls just remained silent but Ashley secretly detested the weapon. It was an AK rifle used by the communists in the Cold War; it was highly unreliable having to be fired from the hip opposed to the shoulder for an accurate shot and easily jammed due to the way the bullets hung underneath the gun. Why Alex and Tom glared at the picture Ashley wasn't too sure but she appreciated the fact that she wasn't the only one who hated the weapon.

Another picture came up of an American soldier gagged and bleeding after being tortured by the Vietcong. Ashley looked closer and almost puked; it was the sergeant of her SWAT camp. He always walked with a limp and had several scars across his arms but she had never assumed it would be because of this. She looked away shocked and Alex noticed and put his hand on her shoulder but she shook it off and smiled at him to indicate she was alright.

It went like that for the rest of the lesson, images being shown and the teacher pausing for the students to absorb the information it was showing them and every now and then a couple of notes put on paper, then the bell rang and the students piled out of the room impatient to get out of school. 

Ashley and Alex made a slow walk back to his house chatting about nothing in particular.

"It would be so much quicker if we rode home," Alex mentioned and Ashley looked at him.

"Do you have a bike?" she asked him and he nodded. "Well you could ride and I could get on the back if it would be easier; we could alternate who rode the bike to make it fair."

"That could work, we'll try it tomorrow," Alex decided and Ashley nodded as they made it up the driveway that extended from Alex's house.

When they made their way back to Alex's house, they were surprised to see that there were two police cars waiting outside; forgetting about the car that they had stolen Alex panicked. He thought that SCORPIA might have come and got hold of Jack to make him surrender; an act which he did not doubt that they would pull off so he sped up to get into the house, Ashley followed him.

A police officer saw them and recognised them from the photograph in his hand so he went to apprehend the boy who was in front. However, when he touched Alex's arm he felt a foot contact his stomach and he stepped back. More police officers came along now trying to get to Alex, who started to fight back until one of the officers jumped on Ashley.

"Alex stop," she yelled as the officer wrenched her arm back so it started to hurt. She cursed herself for not being more alert but she was shocked at how agile Alex was and wondered where he managed to learn moves like he was performing. That was when she had been attacked and now she was being used as bait, what an idiot. Alex turned around and found the metal feel of handcuffs being attached to his hands. Ashley and Alex were piled into separate police cars and transported to their next destination, police cells.

"Come on let me out, you have no right in doing this to me, read my files do what you want but let me out," Ashley screamed as she rammed her shoulders into the metal doors of her cell. Alex was sitting there watching her attempts at getting out.

"Calm down Ash, dislocating your shoulder is not going to get you anywhere," he said standing up and leading the agitated American to a mattress on the floor. She glumly looked at the floor knowing that what he was saying was the truth.

Just then the door opened and a young man walked in. They looked at his badge and Ashley noticed that he was in training. He grabbed Ashley by the arm and forced her out of the cell, leaving Alex on his own. He heard her yell at the man to loosen the grip and he shook his head; she was so uptight it was like a ticking bomb waiting to be set off.

Meanwhile in the interrogation room, Ashley was being bombarded with questions; she remained silent and to make sure that she was fully concentrating on the task at hand she started to count in her head.

"What's your name?"

"You know my name."

"Can you state it for the record?"

"Can you?"

"Is it true that you are SWAT unit 2?" This shocked Ashley and she raised her head and looked the police woman in the eyes; letting none of the emotions that Ashley felt right now show on her face. "Is this a yes?" the woman asked with a smirk.

"No it was a silence I ain't going to answer that you psychotic freak," Ashley replied straight afterwards shocking the woman into silence for a few moments. Then the door opened and two men walked in. One was wearing a suit the other was in an army uniform and Ashley had to refrain herself from standing up and saluting the gentlemen. She noticed the woman stand up and walk out of the room taking the tape recorder with her; one of the men sat down the other stood up behind him. 'Good cop bad cop routine,' Ashley thought to herself with an inward smile.

"Hello Ashley, I'm Mr Blunt and this is Special Air Services officer Wolf, you do realise that stealing a car is a serious offence even in America?" the man said; Ashley noted that his suit matched the colour of his skin and she also noted that he was showing little emotion. She was thinking of making a run for it but one look at the guard behind him changed her mind on that. The army man, Wolf, seemed very athletic and strong she would get ten metres down the corridor before she was caught, there was no competition there so she sat back to hear her options.

"You have been told briefly about your transfer to SAS, which we tell you more about in a moment but firstly this mess you're in right now. We can make this go away if you do one simple mission for us."

"You aren't making this very clear Mr Blunt," Ashley admitted starting to get confused by the man.

"Okay, I'm Mr Alan Blunt, head of MI6, a governmental agency in Britain; we collect information which we then act upon with the help of the Special Air Services, SAS of which Wolf and you are members. Now although you are going to be training and working for the SAS they are powerless to get you out off this sticky situation of you stealing a car. This is where MI6 comes into the equation; if you work on one mission for us then we will be able to wipe your criminal record clean so you can continue to work in the SAS; what do you say?"

"Okay, sounds good I think, so you're a spy agency like CIA?" Ashley replied and Mr Blunt nodded; then he explained the arrangements for Ashley to train with her new unit in SAS.

"As they are based in Cornwall you will have limited training time there. Obviously we are going to give you two weeks there before you begin this mission but afterwards we expect you up there every weekend and holidays. Week days you will be expected at school and any absences will be due to illnesses." Mr Blunt explained and Ashley nodded. Then the two men walked out of the room, leaving Ashley to get escorted out by the officers. Her training started Friday evening; Wolf apparently was picking her up after school, posing as her distant relative. She would tell Alex and Jack that he wanted to see her at every possible opportunity and that she would be staying with them during the weekdays.

Meanwhile, Alex was sitting in a small office with the deputy of MI6, Mrs Jones. He had in his hand a small folder and a couple of gadgets which he hid in his school bag. She was explaining a small mission that they needed him to go on; it did not seem to pose as a life threatening mission but they didn't want to take any risks.

"Alex, about this stealing a car, we have your statement and we believe every detail you have given us. Fortunately, your job with us makes it easier for us to get you off the hook."

"What about Ashley?"

"I'm not exactly sure about her unfortunately Alex, unless she comes up with something credible she will have to do six months maximum," Mrs Jones explained and Alex nodded lowering his gaze to the folder.

"The mission we have for you this time shouldn't be life-threatening but we don't want to take any risks. We want you to pose as the child of an IT technician in Scotland. The IT technician has agreed to pose as your father due to the fact that he has reported several things on the system which has struck him as odd. He works for Stormlines, a new company that is beginning to produce games based on the same principles that Damian Cray used. We need to you to get into the building, download as much of information as possible and get back here so we can analyse it and then bring the company down. We want you to spend two weeks up there starting from Friday evening." With that Mrs Jones stood up and walked out of the room. Alex was then shown the way to the front of the police station by two officers and he sat on the bench opposite waiting for Ashley.

As Ashley walked out of the police station Alex walked up to her and she started to think of answers that she could give him.

"Hey Ashley, you got cleared, what did you do?" Alex came up to her excitedly and she looked at him.

"Oh uh…my third cousin turned up and made a deal with the policemen that I would do two weeks community service up in Cornwall," she explained and Alex stared at her.

"What does he want in return for bailing you out?"

"He wants me to go stay with him at every possible moment so weekends and holidays," Ashley said feeling guilty at lying to Alex. He didn't seem overly happy at this idea but shrugged and they walked home together.


	4. Chapter 4: Friday the thirteenth

**Author's Note: **

**  
I do not own any of the Anthony Horowitz characters but I do own Ashley Curtis and some of the other characters that you might not recognise, like Ashley Curtis.**

**I decided to put up two chapters this time round to make up for taking forever to put up the other chapter. It might seem like this is going nowhere but this is where it actually starts to piece together and start answering some of your questions.**

**Constructive criticism is welcome as are praises so PLEASE review PLEASE.**

**Thanks to all my reviewers and readers so far, you rock!**

**Chapter Four: Friday the thirteenth:**

Friday had come around quickly for the newly employed spy and Ashley and all the way through school they both had growing concerns; concerns which unfortunately could not be shared with each other. Ashley had growing concerns over the two week training that she was about to endure and Alex was concerned over the two week mission that he had been given. He himself felt that the mission wasn't imminently dangerous, but he had thought that of some of his previous missions, all of which he nearly died and so he wasn't taking any chances. On top of which, Tom had reminded them that it was Friday the thirteenth. At this they had both growled at Tom, uncannily at the same time, scaring him enough for him to drop the subject.

School was uneventful apart from the maths lesson, where Ashley had managed to cause the teacher to faint. Mrs Walls was a short and genteel woman and was attempting to teach the class fractions. When she had noted that Ashley was still struggling she had compared fractions to a cake but Ashley was confused at this stating simply that she saw no cake and how would the cake be in fractions if she had eaten it. At this the teacher had fainted, causing class to be dismissed early and a medic to be sent to bring her round.

At the end of the school day, Alex went to collect his bike from the bike rack and Ashley remained at the front of the school. When he came round to the front again, Ashley had changed into trainers, putting her shoes into her bag. She climbed onto the spokes of his bike and he shot off home; curving through the traffic on the road. They made their way back to Alex's house for the last time for two weeks together and Ashley went to collect her duffel bag, which wasn't there.

"Jack have you seen my bag?" she called over the steady chopping of vegetables, which was made from the housekeeper, who was making Alex's dinner, Jack turned around and nodded.

"Yes your third cousin took it away earlier today; he said it will make it easier for you to get to Cornwall don't know why?" Jack said and Ashley sighed in relief. Her mind trailed to the various forms of weaponry that she had stored in the bag and for that brief moment she thought Alex had the bag and was looking through it; how would she explain the three Glochs inside?

"Thanks Jack," she said gratefully and she walked out of the kitchen to go and sit in the living room with Alex until she was collected. The two made no noise, the only sounds coming from the coke cans on the table which were quietly fizzing.

The door bell rang and she went to answer it; in the doorway stood a man who looked familiar but she couldn't quite place it. "Ready to go?" the man asked and Ashley nodded indicating to the bag on her back.

"Alex, Jack, I'm off, see you in two weeks," she called and waited for the muffled replies before she walked out of the house. When they reached the bottom of the road, the man peeled of a latex mask to reveal who he really was.

"Wolf isn't it?" Ashley asked and he nodded.

"Yes, that's me, we'll be getting their by motorbike okay," he climbed onto a black Suzuki and started the ignition. Ashley clambered on after him. "If you need to hold on, grab hold of my shoulders," he explained as he took off the bike stand and they started going down the road.

They had been riding for about four hours and Ashley was starting to get tired, she was struggling to keep her head straight and eyes open and about ten minutes later was asleep on the back of the bike, something which was normal to her. About half an hour had passed before Wolf realised that she was asleep, in which he turned his head to check if she was alright.

"Hey Curtis," he shouted and she woke up startled.

"Huh, I'm awake," she opened her eyes and looked past Wolf who was looking at her concerned, her eyes grew in size and she yelled pointing forwards. "LORRY!"

Wolf tried to swerve away from the lorry, which beeped its horn loudly and started to swerve away but ended up losing control of the bike; Ashley was thrown off and skidded, cutting her shoulder blade on a piece of metal that was in the middle of the motorway. Wolf struggled to stop the bike but when he had there was a small gash on his forehead; he put the bike on the stand and ran over to Ashley stirring a short distance away. The traffic around them had stopped so Wolf helped Ashley up and walked her over to far lane which was used for parking uses only. The steady roar or the cars started back up shortly after they had sat down on the road side, none of the cars stopping to see if the two were okay.

"You alright Curtis?" he asked her, genuinely concerned when she had stopped trembling from the shock. She raised her uninjured arm and pulled the helmet of still slightly shaky. Her face was white and pasty and her hair frizzed out of the ponytail that she had it in.

"I think so, my arm hurts though," she whispered almost inaudibly and he turned her around to have a look at her arm. He gave a short and low whistle at the sight. The metal was protruding from the shoulder blade and blood had started to pour, restricted by the obstruction in the shoulder.

"I bet that looks nasty we should get you to a medic," Wolf admitted putting a hand lightly around the wound in an attempt to figure out what to do.

"I just want to get to the camp to be perfectly honest," Ashley admitted with a stronger voice and Wolf nodded to himself.

"Okay, here's what we will do. I need to get rid of that metal so I'm just going to pull it out and then put a makeshift bandage over the wound. Then we can use the bike to get back to the camp," he waited for Ashley's consent and then instructed her to put her hands on her knees so he could pull the metal out. As he put pressure on the metal Ashley whimpered, something which he was expecting but ignored as he yanked it quickly out. Ashley swore slightly more high-pitched than normal but otherwise ignored the fact that Wolf had started to wrap her blood soaked arm in bandages torn from a spare top in his bag. It didn't really do much for the girl but it was the best he could do and he helped her back onto the bike.

"I blame Tom, he jinxed me," Ashley said quietly before they put their helmets back on and Wolf asked her why. "He told me to watch out because it is Friday the thirteenth," with that Wolf put the bike in gear and rode the rest of the way to the camp, making sure at all times that Ashley was awake.


	5. Chapter 5: First Night Breakaway

Author's Note: I DO NOT OWN ALEX RIDER, but I do own the band members and Ashley…

**Sorry this took so long to post but things have gotten in the way and this has been the first opportunity that I have had to write this chapter. I am hoping that it doesn't disappoint you.**

**Thanks once again for the reviews and please, please, please keep on reviewing, I do appreciate it and try to take everything you say into account.**

**Chapter Five: First Night Breakaway**

When they reached Brecon Beacons, Ashley didn't even attempt to dismount the bike; instead she just fell of it and landed heavily on the ground but she didn't stir, blood started to accumulate on the ground.

"Great impression I get of her Wolf," the sergeant barked when he came over to inspect the girl, Wolf saluted before answering.

"Sorry sir but there was a complication on the way here. However, she has coped well with the blood loss; I am surprised she lasted this long sir," the sergeant saluted and indicated for two medics to pick the girl up and take her to the medical bay. Wolf waited to be dismissed before returning to his unit to explain the situation.

Upon awakening, Ashley found herself in a white room facing the ceiling; her arm had a dull ache and her head ached but she sat up slowly nonetheless. She looked around and saw that she was in a medical room. Looking out the window she saw guards on duty and realised that she was at Brecon Beacons and probably in their medical bay. On a chair next to the bed lay her uniform and so she changed into it and walked out of the room, massaging her shoulder.

When she walked out of the infirmary she stopped a passing soldier. She had dragged her hair back into a bun so she didn't look too awful but she still had a pale face from the amount of blood that she had lost and he eyed her with suspicion.

"Where would I find K unit?" she asked him confidently; she looked for any signs that he was the sergeant but seeing none did not salute; the man continued to stare.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked curiously and he instinctively put his hand on his gun; Ashley tensed up.

"Because I'm meant to be part of that unit, so can you help me?" she retorted and the man relaxed slightly.

"Sure can, I'm on my way there the name's Eagle by the way what's your name?"

"Thanks and the name's Curtis well that was what I went by," they started to walk down to a cabin that was hard to get to and Eagle held the door open for her. When she entered she noticed that there were three other men in the room. Two were playing cards and the other was disassembling a gun and putting it back together again.

"Eagle your back," said one of the men not looking up from the cards the other grunted as a hello.

"Yes Fox and Snake I'm back and with an addition," at this everyone looked up and stared at Ashley who stared back. Eagle placed a hand firmly on her left which she shrugged off. "Sorry only being friendly," he said hurriedly and her and Wolf chuckled.

"Eagle it's not that, she got hit in that arm," Wolf stood up and led her over to the bunks. "Quick test then Tiger, reassemble this gun," she picked up the pieces and slipped them together with ease, she held the gun out and Wolf tested it. "So you got discharged then, that was quick."

"Was I meant to get discharged, I kind of walked out," she admitted biting her lip and everyone cheered her.

"I'm Snake, I'm the medic officer of the group, Fox is weapons detail, Eagle sorts out rations, best cook out of all of us and Wolf is all about getting us into places and war plans. What you good at?" Snake said pointing to each member in turn.

"At SWAT I was a techie decoding, scrambling reprogramming that sort of thing," she said vaguely and they all nodded impressively. Suddenly the doors flung open and a man with a moustache and beret stood fuming in the doorway. Everyone stood to attention even Ashley who was shocked at the outburst, the sergeant stomped over to Ashley and started to yell in her face.

"You are the most idiotic, irresponsible, imbecile that I have in this entire camp," he spat as he yelled and Ashley shocked just stood there taking it. He took a deep breath before continuing to rant on. "You have not even been discharged and yet you walk out of the infirmary without notifying anyone of your whereabouts; with an injured arm only having recovered a day from a fucking head on collision on a bike, what were you thinking. When you get to training I will make sure you personally suffer do you understand," with that he stormed out slamming the door and leaving K unit stunned?

A moment later they all burst out laughing and they all slapped her on the back in approval, "what the hell just happened and how did you take it without laughing?" Eagle asked in tears on the floor and Ashley shook her head. Suddenly the sergeant came back through the door and everyone stopped laughing. "Starting from now, on the floor and give me twenty," Ashley dropped and got into push up position. From there she lowered herself to the floor wincing as her arm burned with pain but she ignored it and kept on going. _Fifteen…sixteen…seventeen._ She paused and the sergeant kicked her side and she quickly finished off the last three; lying on the floor as he walked out satisfied.

She rolled over and held her left arm, breathing deeply before she got back up and walked over to her bunk where she sat down and started to flex her arm slowly. Snake walked up to her concerned but she shrugged him away. "It's okay, just a bit tender that's all," he looked at her with a critical eye before walking away to restart his card game with Fox. Wolf walked over with Eagle and they started an animated chat about being in the middle of a battle field.

"So Tiger what's the biggest war you've been in so far?" Eagle asked and Ashley thought about it.

"Got to be the Iraq war three years ago, what about you guys?"

"Same I think," Wolf replied and Eagle agreed. "What did you do in the war; you're a bit young to be on the front line?"

"Yea that's what they said so my unit got put on hostage and technical support. One day we would be in a moving office sorting out mainframes and communications; the next we would be storming buildings freeing hostages. It was all a big adrenaline rush really," Wolf and Eagle agreed and said that they were put out on the front line; which also had a major adrenaline rush for them, what with the continuous stream of bullets coming from all directions.

By the end of the evening the group got on really well and Wolf admitted that he wasn't too impressed by the fact that they had a girl coming into the group but it was cool now he knew that she had experience.

"Do you remember when Cub came how long did it take for him to be accepted?" Fox chuckled as Wolf blushed.

"Okay I was horrible to him but honestly he was reckless and cocky and everything that made me angry," Wolf protested folding his arms and pouting slightly making everyone crack up.

"Oh Wolf," Eagle sighed wiping a tear away from his eye.

"If there wasn't a newbie in the cabin I would totally take you out," Wolf growled making everyone laugh even more.

"Don't stop on my account Wolf, go right ahead," she lazily drawled, which made her American accent more predominant and Wolf rubbed his hands in glee and lunged at Eagle whose eyes widened as he dived onto the floor.

"You realise we could get dragged into this," Snake gently asked Ashley who grinned at him and nodded excitedly. Snake sighed and lay back on the bunk, watching the action rage on.

When they finally got to sleep Ashley drifted off into an uneasy sleep. She dreamed of her unit that she had left in America and the dream soon turned into a nightmare.

_Everyone was in camp working on their specific tasks as they had been for forty eight hours swapping shifts so as to get sleep. Suddenly gun shots were heard and men came bursting through the concealed doors; a massive fight started where men on both sides were being killed. The men that had burst through the doors started to retreat back into the streets quickly and everyone in the surrounding area wondered why; then they heard a loud beeping noise which came from the middle of the room; there lay a timed bomb counting down the seconds before it detonated. Ashley could see the numbers counting down ten…nine…and one of the men trying to stop it from detonating whilst everyone else evacuated the building; two…one…_

Ashley woke with a yell, sweat pouring down her face. She steadied her breathing and looked around for the beeping noise and there lay her mobile phone. She looked at the number but did not recognise it.

"Hello…Curtis speaking," she answered using her surname instead of her code name. The others in K unit were listening in although they pretended that they were still sleeping. "Yes… no it's not a problem at all… calm down I can't understand what you're saying. Katrina…Katrina breath and tell me what has happened… ok…yes I understand...make sure no one in the room leaves and pile furniture in front of the door to block it off…where…Cornwall…near Brecon Beacons…what are you doing there…gig…kidnapped…a failed escape attempt…how many… Katrina… Katrina… hello," Ashley looked at the phone which was now dead. "Shit," she jumped out of bed and ran into the adjoining bathroom; she came out with her black combats and t-shirt on and boots. She grabbed her gun and knives and put them on her person before running out of the cabin and towards a place where she had noticed the bikes had been taken.

She looked around for the keys to the bike with a small table light on when she heard a jangling noise. She spun around gun drawn and saw Snake, Fox, Eagle and Wolf all standing behind her.

"Going somewhere?" Fox asked throwing her some keys; Ashley caught them with one hand whilst putting her gun back in its holster on her thigh.

"So what if I am?" she asked them defensively as they took a step forward.

"Tell us about the phone call and we'll help," Snake said throwing her the phone, which she caught easily and pocketed.

"I was in a band before I left America and that was my lead guitarist. I don't why but they're touring in England and during the tour they got kidnapped about two miles north from here. They tried to escape but ended up blocking themselves in a room. Then I lost contact so I'm going to save them, come if you want, it'll get us used to working as a team but I'm going now," she explained impatiently as she mounted the bike; as the others in the team also mounted bikes her phone started to ring so she answered it.

"Katrina is that you? Yes no sorry my fault the signal went… how many are there…any injured…I'm on my way…I don't quite know but I'll figure it out when I get there…just hold on I'll be quick I promise…bye," she looked at the unit and they started their bikes. She waited until they had gone past her before following.

When they reached the place where the band were the unit scouted the area and found that it was heavily guarded. "What's the plan?" Eagle whispered to Wolf.

"Okay here's the plan, Snake, Eagle and Tiger stay here. Fox and I will provide a distraction; when the guards leave their posts you run in and find the people we are looking for. As far as I can tell there will be some injured so Snake can deal with them, Eagle be on the look out for any trouble and Tiger deal with the technological side of things. When we have managed to get away from the guards, we'll come up and help you get the others on bikes and then we will take them to hospital and deal with the authorities; good luck." With that Wolf and Fox crept around to a place where they could safely carry out the distraction. The remaining three watched with mild amusement as the two began to act like two drunkards and started to have a brawl in the middle of the guards. Soon everyone was involved and the three snuck out from their hiding places and entered the building.

"Contact each other on these when you have found them," Ashley threw them each an ear piece which they activated and then they separated to find the blocked door. Ashley went upstairs, Snake went downstairs and Eagle continued to look on that floor. As Ashley rounded a corner a guard became visible and she flung herself into a small dent in the wall where she remained occasionally peeping around to see where the guard was. A small crackling in her ear was heard from Snake.

"Found them bottom floor, I'm waiting outside," Ashley swore the guard was not moving but he was looking the other way. She crouched down and then lay down so her stomach was flat on the floor. Then without making a noise she crawled back towards the staircase where, at the bottom, she met Eagle who looked like he had been running.

"Almost had a run in with the guards," he explained and she nodded in reply.

"Me too," she said as they slowly made their way down the stairs to where Snake was waiting for them. Ashley pulled out her phone and dialled the number which was left on her phone from Katrina's last call. "Hey Katrina, when you here a knock on the door that sounds like 'wake me up when September ends' drums open up because it's me okay," Ashley knocked on the door and suddenly a lot of scuffling could be heard and then the door flung open and she was grabbed in an embrace by a girl around her height with green hair. Ashley indicated for the guys to go in and sort out those that were injured which they did; Ashley pulled herself out of the embrace and started working on her task, whilst talking to Katrina.

"Hey Tiger give us a hand," Snake called over and so Ashley dropped Katrina's phone and ran over and knelt beside him.

"What's up?" she asked him as she looked down to see her old drummer Razor.

"Stab wound in the stomach could you apply pressure whilst I find something to make a bandage from?" he asked and Ashley complied by pushing both hands on the boy's stomach; she received a punch in the face but she kept the pressure and started to talk.

"Razor it's me Ash, just stay still, this might hurt but it'll work okay just breath and stay with me," after that Razor relaxed and Snake came back taking over Ashley.

"Tiger there is a computer over there if you want to have a look at it," he commented and Ashley looked at the computer in the corner of the room. She grinned, grabbed Katrina and turned the computer on.

"Woh, what the hell is that?" Katrina asked as a lot of writing appeared on the screen.

"Its French instructions on how to use the computer, what mainframe it has, password integrity, type of encryption and other things on it," Ashley replied starting to type things onto the keyboard. A dark screen came up with a map of the complex and a virtual tour of the building, "and this is where we are now," she muttered as the printer activated and started to print off various pages of work. Then Ashley bent down and picked up a memory stick from her combat trouser pocket and inserted it into the tower of the computer. She went onto a general view of the folders in the computer and started to copy them all to her memory stick.

The memory stick had almost received all the information, when a small pop up came up on the screen. Ashley opened it and found that she had opened up a security feed which showed commotion outside the room. Wolf and Fox had apparently finished with their distraction and were running towards them; followed by a large group of guards. The computer beeped suddenly indicating that all the information had been transferred and so Ashley took out her memory stick replacing it in her trouser pocket. Then she pulled a gun from the holster on the top of her leg and checked the ammunition it had; took it off the safety and stood up.

"Katrina need a favour, could you download this CD onto the computer. Inside the case is the instructions clearly set out follow them exactly and it should work; any problems well ask Snake or wait until I get back," Ashley tossed her friend a CD and walked out the room with Eagle who had heard the commotion.

Katrina sat shakily at the computer and started to download the CD; as she was waiting for it to transfer the images over the fighting started and Katrina jumped at the sound of gun shots from outside the room. The fighting went on for about ten minutes until silence seemed to overcome the room. Then they heard footsteps coming towards the door and Snake pulled his gun out. The four soldiers yelled at him as they slipped in the doorway.

"Woh man put it down," Eagle yelled hands held up high in panic.

"Snake man; cool it we won," Fox said at the same time as Eagle.

"Don't shoot," Wolf called out, closing one eye waiting for the gun to go off.

"You just have no faith in us do you Snake?" Ashley asked when he had put the gun down and he smiled meekly at them. "Katrina how's it going?"

"Good I think it worked," Katrina smiled at her friend who returned the gesture and then went to the computer. She went through several files as the others prepared to get the others onto the bikes and nodded satisfied.

"Good work Katrina," she said patting her friend on the back before walking over to where Wolf was deciding on what to do with Razor who was unable to ride on a bike in his current condition.

"He's going to have to though, we have no other vehicles with us," Eagle mentioned to the gang who nodded in agreement.

"Unless you hot-wire a car," Ashley mentioned casually and the others looked at her.

"Like you did," Wolf pointed out and she went bright red and nodded.

"In my defence there was a crazy psycho trying to kill me and Alex," she retorted making the others laugh.

Wolf walked out of the room in search of a car; they waited for about ten minutes until he returned. "Found a car," he said and then the unit went about getting everyone outside. All of the hostages except Katrina had been injured in some way or other. Snake and Wolf took either end of Razor and carried him out into the car; they belted him up so that the belt put pressure on the wound so as to slow the bleeding. Eagle grabbed Nigel, who was the backing singer in the band and half carried half dragged him outside and onto the front of his motorbike. Fox walked out with Rylie, the bass guitarist, who was supporting a broken arm. Ashley slipped Carl's arm around her neck and helped him limp out onto a bike. Carl was the keyboard player in Ensyncrate and a very close friend of Ashley's. Katrina followed the large group out of the room.

It had been decided that Wolf was to drive the car, whilst Katrina rode Ashley's bike which was the Kawasaki. Then Ashley would ride on Wolf's Suzuki with Carl and the other three in the unit would ride their bikes with their injured person on the front. Wolf pulled away and after giving him a couple of seconds to get a short distance away, the others followed him towards the nearest hospital.

When they reached the hospital about ten minutes later, K unit started to prioritise the people depending on how severe they were. Snake and Wolf picked up Razor and carried him quickly yet steadily towards the Accident and Emergency part of the hospital. The others followed with Nigel, Carl, Rylie and found Snake and Wolf standing impatiently in a long queue waiting for the go ahead to see a doctor.

"This is taking the piss," Snake swore looking at Razor. He felt his wrist and shook his head. "His pulse is extremely weak," Ashley looked at him with wide eyes.

"You can't lose him," she said clearly and he shrugged.

"We might if we can't cut in this queue," Wolf admitted hollowly and Ashley looked angrily at the queue.

"Right that does it, Katrina, take Carl, I'll be back," with that Ashley slipped under Carl's arm and stormed to the front of the queue. The others looked at each other questioningly; their curiosity was answered when Ashley's angry yells were heard from the desk.

"No you will not fucking tell me to go to the back of the queue; I have a fucking 16 year old bleeding out because he was shot in his bloody abdomen," a pause and then quieter, "Sir may I inquire as to what is wrong with you…I see…a BROKEN TOE… are you seriously telling me that a broken toe is more important than a bleeding abdomen…huh…no, I didn't think so," she signalled for Snake and Wolf to bring Razor forward and they complied. When they got to the reception desk she went pale and called the doctor immediately.

"What's the matter I was having a tea break…Holy Shit…can I have a crash team here immediately, follow me sirs," the doctor took control of the situation and Ashley waited until they were round the corner before she went back to the line where the rest of the unit was.

"And that is how you deal with a bloody emergency," she stated and the others stared at her.

When the unit returned to the camp it was five o'clock in the morning and they had time to shower and get changed before they went for the morning jog. Half way round, they were slacking; each of the unit's members having to drag the other one with them, if they wanted to make it around in time. It seemed that although they were meant to be fit for the front line that each member of K unit were tired and so they were unable to perform at their best. The sergeant noted this and had serious words with them after they had their breakfast at seven.

"What happened this morning?" he asked snappily at the unit who were struggling to keep their eyes open.

"Sir, duty called last night sir," Eagle ended up replying, trying to suppress a yawn.

"What sort of duty?"

"A duty to save people sir," Wolf replied blinking rapidly to get his eyes used to the sunlight that streamed through the windows.

"Right, I am not going to get any straight answers from you in this state am I? Go get a couple of hours sleep and report to my office at ten sharp understand?" K unit nodded, saluted sloppily and then made their way to their cabin where they slumped onto the bunks and fell asleep. Ashley and Eagle didn't even make it to their bunks and ended up sleeping on the hard floor.

At nine thirty a gun shot woke Ashley, Fox and Wolf up from their slumber and they jumped up in shock. "What the hell?" Fox asked as he looked out of the cabin window.

"Isn't that R unit?" Wolf asked and Fox nodded.

"Why are they shooting out of the gun range?" Ashley asked.

"We do that sometimes but never this close to a cabin," Wolf explained and Ashley remembered that she wasn't in America.

"But still it's odd and rare to do," Fox added quietly. Ashley walked over to Eagle and kicked him awake and then went over to Snake and shook him awake. Then the entire unit looked out of the windows on the cabin over at R unit.

A knock on the door made them jump and they all looked at each other silently. Ashley walked over and waited for the rest of the unit to jump into the bunks. They looked at the door confused and Ashley opened it. There stood three men from R unit guns at the ready and pointed them at the different K unit members who jumped out of bed, shocked. Suddenly two other members from R unit walked in and they each grabbed a hold of each of the K unit members who were still curious as to why they were being attacked.

"What the hell is going on here?" Wolf yelled as he was put in a headlock by one of the other unit members.

"We have been informed that someone in this unit is spilling information to SCORPIA and we have been given the job to find this person," another man answered.

"Who authorised that order?" Ashley asked curiously and the man, Hawk that was holding her, replied forcefully. She noticed that his grip had tightened and her arm was starting to ache as it had not fully healed yet.

"The sergeant of course, now be quiet squirt."

K unit looked at each other in confusion and then realised what was going on. The sergeant was making them pay for the fact that they had not performed up to standard that morning with a small interrogation course. It was going to be a long two weeks, Ashley thought to herself as she was dragged out of the room, followed by Wolf, Snake, Eagle and Fox.

_Back to Alex:_

Shortly, after Ash had left, a black Hummer had pulled up outside of Alex's house and he had walked outside with his suitcase, which had been hidden upstairs in his wardrobe waving goodbye to Jack as he did so. The car then pulled away and took him straight to Liverpool street so that he could get his briefing for the mission, gadgets that he needed and leave for Scotland as he was due to arrive the next day.

As he walked in, he found that Mrs Jones was waiting for him in the lobby of the bank and he raised an eyebrow as he got closer. She carefully unwrapped a peppermint and seemed to wince as the wrapping of the mint started to crunch in her hands.

"Hello Mrs Jones, what brings you to meet me like this?" Alex asked pleasantly and Mrs Jones smiled warmly at Alex. Like Miss Bedfordshire, she seemed to have a soft spot for Alex regardless of the fact that he had tried to kill her months before. As they started to walk down the corridor, she started to explain to Alex.

"We have an hour before your transport is due to arrive to take you up to Scotland and so we have an hour to fill out the paperwork to claim you are truly an agent here, as well as brief you and prepare you with your gadgets," Alex looked in wonder as they walked into a new room that he hadn't seen before. Inside there was a row of desks and all sorts of people were working at different stations. They went to the very end of the room and sat in a corner where Mrs Jones booted up a computer and started to type in a password, which Alex managed to get a sneak peek at and mentally stored it for later use.

A short while later, the clacking of the keys stopped and Mrs Jones, looked over at one of the other people in the room who nodded and left the room abruptly, returning a short while later with an ID card, office key and folder. These were handed over to Alex, who flicked through them and nodded in agreement.

"Thanks sir," he said to the man who had retrieved the files. The man said nothing but nodded curtly before returning to his work. Then Mrs Jones signed out of the computer and signalled for Alex to follow her; which he did. They made their way to the lift where they went up to Alex's new office. On the table was a state of the art laptop as well as two boxes. To the side was a filing cabinet for his paperwork, a column of shelves to place other items on there and a phone for internal calls only.

Alex looked at Mrs Jones before opening the boxes. The smaller of the two contained an I-phone, latest edition in black; the larger of the boxes contained five guns, two Smiths and Wesson semi automatic pistols, two Colts pistols and a Gloch. There was also a sheet which was to be filled in when Alex had the time with regards to what vehicle he would like to learn to drive and information on pension schemes.

"What do you think Alex?"

"Er, amazing, thanks Mrs Jones," Alex stuttered in amazement at the speed in which his initiation had taken. She smiled at the boy, who at the moment looked a perfect picture of his age before steering him out of the room, ensuring it was locked and taking him to Alan Blunt's office for his briefing. For the first time, he wasn't going to argue about doing these missions, he actually felt like he belonged and was wanted as opposed to being blackmailed into doing MI6's bidding.

"Hello Alex, shortly you will be travelling up to Scotland in a small Fiesta, sent down by your pretend father. As you already know, you are to pose as the son of an IT technician in Scotland, who works for Stormlines. Your job is to download all of the information that they have and get it to us safely. In the folder which has been posted in your room already, is your full mission briefing, with all the details you need. You will be gone for two weeks so good luck and remember to send continuous updates so we can check your progress. Good luck." Alex stood up and walked out heading towards Smithers' Office, if anyone would have anything he could use in this mission it would be him. He noticed the office door and he knocked; a small bang was heard and smoke started to rise from underneath the door crack. It swung open and Smithers was standing there beaming at Alex, his face blackened from the smoke.

"Erm, hello Mr Smithers, sorry for interrupting but I wondered if you had a moment?" Alex asked and Mr Smithers smiled as he ushered the boy into his room.

"Of course I have a moment for you Alex ma dear boy, what can I do for you?"

"Well I was wondering if you have any spare gadgets for my next mission," Alex started to say but was cut off by Mr Smithers rumbling through his cupboards.

"I do indeed Alex, just wait a second and I'll get them for you," he pulled out a relatively large box and put it in front of Alex. "Here they are, in the box is a list of the equipment that you should have and their functions, I'm sorry I can't stay to explain and show you but I have an explosive device to deal with and I don't want it to blow up if you know my meaning," with that Smithers wished Alex good luck before waddling out of the room into a darker room at the back of the office. Alex chuckled to himself before picking up the box and making his way to his new office.

He placed all of the items on his desk one by one carefully, as he didn't know the functions of all of the items yet and then picked up the piece of paper so he could read up their functions. He noticed that in his tray there was a mission folder with a Top Secret stamp across the front which he picked up.

_GADGETS: _

_Alex my dear boy, thought you may need a bit of extra help and although I have heard you are allowed guns now, they aren't as reliable as my gadgets so I thought I would make you some in the off chance you might decide to pay me a visit. If you are reading this then you obviously have the gadgets so here is a list of them and what they are functioned to do. Good luck Alex and be safe, it just wouldn't be the same without you._

_Smithers_

_**Laptop- normal functions, direct contact to MI6 and Smithers, Scan/photocopy documents to send, relays security feed from control room, distress signal even when turned off, can transfer files and encrypt them direct from the main computer**_

_**I-pod- normal functions, record conversations, holds maps of area, records recce movements for playback purposes only**_

_**Sunglasses- heat vision, infra red, night vision, normal function, one eye holds map of building when downloaded from either computer of I-pod**_

_**B-B gun- tranquilizer darts**_

_**Trainers- diamond edged laces, blade inside soul of shoe activated by pushing down the heel, has light function for dark rooms**_

_**Bullet Proof Vest top- to be worn underneath clothes, are lightweight to stop 9mm rounds and knife attacks**_

_**Torch- light and holds tranquilizer darts**_

_**Mobile- I-phone so has normal functions, instant contact with MI6 on 2 speed dial, instant contact with Smithers on 3 speed dial, tranquilizer dart, debugging system and tracker**_

_**Chain- tracking system if separated with phone, activate by pushing down hard till it clicks**_

_**Motorised yoyo- abseiling or climbing purposes with metal edged string, holds up to 80 kg**_

_**Nintendo DS Lite- turns into smoke bomb, debugging system and picks up security feeds**_

_**Zit Cream- burns through metal and can work underwater**_

_PS: this note will self destruct in thirty seconds after reading the list. _

Feeling slightly better about the mission, now that he knew he had plenty of gadgets, Alex packed a bag with all of the gadgets he wasn't wearing in, his folder and other items that he would need. He then picked up his suitcase and wheeled it down to the foyer so he could see when the fiesta pulled up. He then sat down on a creaky chair in the lobby and watched the different people passing by as he waited for the remaining time until he travelled to Scotland.


End file.
